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Guest house for St. Elizabeth’s marks 20 years of care
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Todd and Linda Bacon at Humility of Mary Health Partners Guest House.
The guest house opened 20 years ago.
YOUNGSTOWN — Humility of Mary Guest House “should be called a guest home,” said a Chicago woman living there while her husband recovers from injuries suffered in an auto crash.
“It is full of love and hugs and safety,” said Lindie Bacon.
Lindie and her husband, Dan, were injured June 2 in a car crash on Interstate 80 just over the Pennsylvania border from Ohio while traveling from Cincinnati, where they attended the graduation of their son Todd’s oldest child. They were en route to Connecticut to visit another son.
Lindie was treated at Sharon Regional Health System’s hospital, and Dan, more seriously injured, was brought to St. Elizabeth Health Center’s Level I trauma center for treatment. He is still recovering in the hospital’s progressive intermediate care unit, which is a step down from intensive care.
For the last 21‚Ñ2 weeks, Lindie and Todd have lived in the HM Guest House to be near their husband and father.
“The art of hospitality is still alive here,” Todd said. “We have been overwhelmed by the kindness and generosity and helpfulness of the staff at the guest house, the hospital and the entire Youngstown community.”
The Bacons are the most recent of 2,901 people from the area, across the U.S. and around the world to stay at the Humility of Mary Guest House over the past 12 years.
The facility opened 20 years ago. The first guests were a family from East Liverpool whose mother had been injured. They weren’t uncomfortable because they had one another, said Sister Therese Quinn, first director of the guest house and retired director of media resources at St. Elizabeth. Sister Margaret Burgess, who was Sister Therese’s assistant, is now the house director.
Sister Margaret recalled one guest, an Indian woman who was “clearly not Catholic,” who would bow in front of the tapestry of the Virgin Mary every morning. “I was very touched by her show of respect for the Catholic religion even though her own beliefs were different.”
The idea of a guest house began when doctors, nurses and nuns saw people sleeping in the lobby of the hospital to be near their loved ones.
Read the full story Monday in The Vindicator and on Vindy.com.